Systems and methods for substituting references to content

ABSTRACT

Techniques for substituting references to content shared within the social networking system. In an embodiment, a first reference to a first version of content is received. A second version of the content is selected based on at least one optimization objective. A second reference to the second version of the content is created for provision to a user of a social networking system. The second reference is provided for the user. The at least one optimization objective includes at least one of a business objective, a technical objective, and a legal objective. The content may include at least one of video and audio.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of social networking. Moreparticularly, the present invention provides techniques for substitutinglinks to videos shared within a social networking system.

BACKGROUND

Internet social networks have become a significant phenomenon. Socialnetworks allow an Internet user to create an account and a user profile,often for free, and interact with other users of the social network. Asocial network user can gain access to the profile of another user byrequesting to add him or her as a friend. Once approved, the“friendship” typically gives both users access to each other's profilesand the content posted on them. Friends' posts may appear as newsstories in each other's news feeds, and friends can usually comment oneach other's news stories. Social network users typically seek toassemble a group of friends or followers with whom they interact.Information on a user's profile is often only accessible to the user'sfriends.

Social networks are providing users with increasingly sophisticatedfunctionality. Early social networks offered little more than a simpleinterface for users to communicate and post messages. Now, on manysocial networks, users may share numerous different types of content andinteract with each other's content in a variety of ways. Content sharedon a social network may include digital media such as videos. Users mayupload videos to social networks and post links to videos hosted bythird party sites. Users may discover new videos and share videos postedon their friends' profiles. Because of their collaborative nature,social networks have now become a popular means by which many peopleshare videos and other media content.

SUMMARY

To allow for realization of optimization objectives of a socialnetworking system, embodiments of the invention include systems,methods, and computer readable media to substitute references to contentshared within the social networking system. A first reference to a firstversion of content is received. A second version of the content isselected based on at least one optimization objective. A secondreference to the second version of the content is created for provisionto a user of a social networking system.

In an embodiment, the content includes at least one of video and audio.In an embodiment, the second reference is provided for the user. In anembodiment, the at least one optimization objective includes at leastone of a business objective, a technical objective, and a legalobjective. In an embodiment, the at least one optimization objectiveincludes a quality threshold.

In an embodiment, a request to access the content is received from theuser. In an embodiment, capabilities of a computing device of the userto access at least one of the first version of the content and thesecond version of the content are determined. In an embodiment, theselecting is based on the determining capabilities of the computingdevice. In an embodiment, a location of the user is determined. It isdetermined that the user has no rights to access the first version ofthe content in the location.

In an embodiment, the first version of the content is provided by afirst content sharing system. In an embodiment, the first contentsharing system is not integrated with a platform of the socialnetworking system. In an embodiment, the second version of the contentis provided by the social networking system. In an embodiment, thesecond version of the content is provided by a second content sharingsystem separate from the first content sharing system. In an embodiment,the second content sharing system is integrated with a platform of thesocial networking system.

In an embodiment, metadata is associated with the second version of thecontent for presentation to the user. In an embodiment, at least one ofthe first reference and the second reference includes a URL. In anembodiment, it is determined whether to provide an attribution for thesecond version of the content for presentation to the user. In anembodiment, it is determined that the second version of the contentsatisfies a similarity threshold with the first version of the content.

Many other features and embodiments of the invention will be apparentfrom the accompanying drawings and from the following detaileddescription.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates a user interface of a social networking systemincluding functionality for uploading a video to the social networkingsystem in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 1B illustrates the video within the user interface after it hasbeen uploaded to the social networking system in accordance with anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 1C illustrates the user interface of the social networking systemincluding functionality for sharing a video, or a link thereto, inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 1D illustrates a preview of the video corresponding to the link inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example video substitution module for substitutingan alternate version of a video in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a process for substituting a reference to a versionof a video in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates a process for selecting a video to embed in a pageprovided to a user of the social networking system in accordance with anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process for displaying a version of a video withoutattribution in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6A illustrates a preview of the video with attribution to thecontent provider of an alternate version of the video in accordance withan embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6B illustrates a preview of the video with no attribution to thecontent provider of an alternate version of the video in accordance withan embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a network diagram of a system for substituting videolinks within a social networking system in accordance with an embodimentof the invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a computer system that may be used toimplement one or more of the embodiments described herein in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention.

The figures depict various embodiments of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only, wherein the figures use like referencenumerals to identify like elements. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated in the figures may be employedwithout departing from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Substituting References to Content

Users may take advantage of the collaborative features and functionalityof a social networking system to upload and share digital videos. A userof the social networking system may share a video with other users ofthe social networking system. The video may be hosted or stored by acontent provider. The content provider may be the social networkingsystem, a third party content sharing system (or video source), or anyother type of entity that may provide content. A third party contentsharing system may be a site that is not controlled by the socialnetworking system.

A user may share a video in a variety of manners. A user may share thevideo by posting a link to the video on her own wall, profile, ortimeline, or on the wall, profile, or timeline of another user. A usermay share a video by posting the video to a page associated with a groupof users within the social networking system. A user may share a videoby sending a link to the video in a message to another user of thesocial networking system. A user may select a “share” option associatedwith a video to post the video to a third party site. A user may selecta “share” option associated with a video appearing on a third party sitethat is integrated with a platform operated by the social networkingsystem to share the video on a page within the social networking system.In this regard, the social networking system may use iframes to allowthird party sites to create applications that are hosted separately fromthe social networking system but operate within a session of the socialnetworking system and are accessed through a user's profile. A user mayselect a “share” option associated with a video, which appears on athird party site to which the user authenticates using the credentialsof her account on the social networking system, to share the video on apage within the social networking system. A video shared by a user mayappear in the news feeds of other users, such as friends of the user whoshared the video. A user may also share a video that has been firstposted by one or more of the user's friends. Videos may be embeddedwithin content delivered to a user by the social networking system suchthat the user may watch the video within a user interface of the socialnetworking system without having to access a user interface of a thirdparty content sharing system or a dedicated video viewing page.

FIGS. 1A-1D illustrate example online video functionality of the socialnetworking system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.FIG. 1A illustrates a user interface 104 of the social networking systemincluding functionality for uploading a video to the social networkingsystem in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. An “upload”option 105 within the user interface 104 may be selected that prompts auser Brady Carr to browse to the location of the video 102 on a userdevice. The user device may be a smartphone, a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a tablet, or any type of computing device from whichthe social networking system may be accessed. An “OK” option 106 may beselected when the video 102 is located. FIG. 1B illustrates the video102 within the user interface 104 after it has been uploaded to thesocial networking system in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. Playback of the video may be initiated, paused, and resumedusing a playback button 107.

FIG. 1C illustrates the user interface 104 of the social networkingsystem including functionality for sharing a video, or a link thereto,in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. An option 110 to posta link to a video may be selected by the user Brady Carr. Text includinga uniform resource locator (URL), such as a URL 108 accompanied by amessage 109 composed by the user Brady Carr, may be entered by the userinto the interface 104 and posted by selecting an “OK” option 111. In anembodiment, in lieu of entering the URL to share the video, the user mayselect an option to share the video from within a user interface of thethird party content sharing system or from within the user's news feedwithin the social networking system. The URL 108 may point to a videoprovided by the social networking system or a third party contentsharing system.

In an embodiment, upon receiving the URL 108, the social networkingsystem may communicate with the third party content sharing system andretrieve metadata of the video. In an embodiment, the metadata may beretrieved through link scraping, i.e., extracting information from aresource associated with the video by, for example, parsing textembedded within or associated with the resource. As discussed below, themetadata may include the title of the video, a description of the video,the runtime length of the video, thumbnail images, still frames from thevideo, or any other information pertaining to the video. In anembodiment, an option 117 to upload a video may be selected by the user.The user may be prompted to specify a location of a video on his userdevice, select a video to upload, upload the video, and share theuploaded video. The social networking system may extract metadata fromthe uploaded video. The metadata may be used to compare two videos anddetermine whether they include similar content, as explained in furtherdetail below. The metadata may also be displayed with the video when it,or a related link to the video, is shared on a page within the socialnetworking system.

FIG. 1D illustrates a preview 112 of the video corresponding to the URL108 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. The preview 112may be created by the social networking system using the metadata of thevideo retrieved from the third party content sharing system. The preview112 includes a thumbnail image 113 of the video, a short description ofthe video 114, a video length indicator 115, and a video URL indicator116 that points to the video. In an embodiment, the preview 112 may bepublished as a story in news feeds of other users of the socialnetworking system, such as friends of the user Brady Carr. In anembodiment, when the preview 112 is published to the news feeds of otherusers of the social networking system, the preview 112 may include a“share” option (not pictured) for other users to share the video ontheir own profiles without having to type the URL. A user may play thevideo within or outside the interface 104 by selecting the thumbnailimage 113.

Multiple versions of a video or other types of content may be uploadedto the social networking system or to several third party contentsharing systems. The multiple versions may include multiple copies ofthe same video file. For example, a single video file may have beenuploaded to a content sharing system multiple times, or to multiplecontent sharing systems. The multiple versions also may include multiplerecordings of the same content. For example, different video recordingsof the same content may have been uploaded to one or more contentsharing systems. The versions may include different digitized copies ofthe same content. As an illustration, different recordings may have beenmade of the same television program. The different recordings may havebeen digitized and uploaded to a content sharing system. Further, thedifferent recordings may have been digitized and uploaded to more thanone content sharing system. Multiple versions of a video may include anyversions that are identical or nearly identical to one another.

A user may share a video within the social networking system. In someinstances, it may be desirable for the social networking system topresent to potential viewers of the video a different version of thevideo from the version of the video shared by the user. The socialnetworking system may substitute an alternate version of the video forthe version of the video shared by the user. In an embodiment, thesocial networking system may create a reference to the alternate versionand provide the reference to the alternate version to the potentialviewers instead of a reference to the version that was shared. While theembodiments discussed herein may reference video, the embodiments mayapply equally to audio, audio-visual, and other types of content.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the social networkingsystem may identify an alternate or similar version of a video byapplying any suitable conventional techniques for detecting similaritiesand differences in multimedia content. One such technique involvesderiving the discrete cosine transform (DCT) of still frames within avideo file. DCT values may be derived for one or more still frames in afirst version of the video and one or more still frames in a secondversion of the video. The DCT values of the still frames in the firstversion may be compared with the DCT values of the still frames in thesecond version. Techniques such as deriving DCT values may be used inconjunction with other similarity detection techniques, such ascomparing the runtime lengths, audio content, still frames, andthumbnail images of the first version and the second version todetermine if the first version and the second version are versions ofthe same video. Still frames, runtime lengths, audio content, thumbnailimages, and other information used to identify alternate or similarversions of a video may be included in the video metadata retrieved bythe social networking system. The social networking system may identifythe alternate version of the video with reference to a selectedsimilarity threshold that denotes a defined degree of similarity betweentwo videos.

The social networking system may determine that the version of the videoshared by the user should be substituted with another version of thevideo based on one or more optimization objectives. The optimizationobjectives may be based on business, technical, legal, or otherconsiderations, as discussed in further detail below. The socialnetworking system may identify an alternate version of the video thatconforms to the optimization objectives and substitute the alternateversion for the shared version.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example video substitution module 200 forsubstituting an alternate version of a video in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. The social networking system may receive areference to a first version of a video from a user. The first versionof the video may be provided by the social networking system or a thirdparty content sharing system. The video substitution module 200 mayreceive the reference to the first version of the video as an input. Thevideo substitution module 200 may also receive as inputs optimizationobjectives that are determined or stored in one or more other modules ofthe social networking system. The optimization objectives may includebusiness objectives, technical objectives, legal objectives, or othercriteria. Based on the inputs, the video substitution module 200 mayidentify a second version of the video and substitute a reference to thesecond version of the video for the reference to the first version ofthe video. The second version of the video may be provided by the socialnetworking system, a content sharing system that does not provide thefirst version of the video, or a content sharing system that doesprovide the first version of the video.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to avoid linking to a particular third party contentsharing system. The social networking system may have businessobjectives that may be not be served by linking to the particular thirdparty content sharing system. For example, the social networking systemmay wish to direct traffic to the social networking system or anotherthird party content sharing system deemed most advantageous for itsusers. The social networking system may prefer to direct traffic to athird party content sharing system that provides the user with the mostrelevant forms of advertising or provides the user with advertising fromoptimal sources. As another example, the social networking system mayprefer to direct traffic to a third party content sharing system withwhich the social networking system has a partnership or other businessrelationship. Providing a link to a third party content sharing systemwith whom the social networking system has no relationship may, forexample, prevent the social networking system from maximizingopportunities to place advertising or other revenue-generating contentthat may be most relevant to its users. In an embodiment, upon receivinga reference to a version of a video provided by a particular third partycontent sharing system from a user, the social networking system maysubstitute a reference to an alternate version of the video provided bythe social networking system or another suitable third party contentsharing system.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to link to particular third party content sharingsystems. The social networking system may have business objectives thatare served by directing traffic to the particular third party contentsharing systems. The business objectives may reflect a desire tooptimize revenue generated by the social networking system. The businessobjectives may reflect a desire to ensure consistency in the source andtype of shared videos across all users or a subset of users of thesocial networking system. For example, a first user of the socialnetworking system may share a first version of a video, and a seconduser may share the first version of the video after viewing it. However,a third user may view the first version of the video but share adifferent, second version of the video. The viewing and sharing of thevideo and its different versions by various users may represent a “sharepath” of the video. The social networking system may select a particularversion of the video to substitute for another version based on theshare path of the video. For example, the social networking system maydecide to present the first version of the video to subsequent usersbecause the majority of users in the share path viewed the firstversion. As another example, the social networking system may decide topresent the first version of the video to subsequent users because thefirst version was the initial version in the share path. As yet anotherexample, the social networking system may decide to present the secondversion of the video to subsequent users because it was the most recentversion in the share path. The business objectives may reflect a desireto leverage optimal functionality and features of content sharingsystems that most benefit the users of the social networking system andoptimize their user experience. For example, the social networkingsystem may wish to display videos with a multimedia player that displaystime stamps of scenes of the videos. The social networking systemaccordingly may substitute a version of a video hosted by a contentsharing system that provides such a multimedia player for versions ofthe video hosted by content sharing systems that provide other types ofplayers.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to link to third party content sharing systems thatutilize or integrate with a platform operated by the social networkingsystem. In an embodiment, the platform may be implemented as a set ofAPIs provided by the social networking system that third party contentsharing systems may utilize. The platform may be an advertising network,a content sharing network, a data sharing network, or other cooperativearrangement or integration. For example, the content sharing system oran associated multimedia player may be integrated with a platform of thesocial networking system or its multimedia player so that user actionstaken with respect to the content sharing system may be tracked andrecorded by the social networking system. Tracked and recorded actionsof a user may be, for example, published as stories within news feeds ofother users of the social networking system.

The platform of the social networking system may provide pre-definedobject types that allow content sharing systems to classify actions ofusers so that the actions may be tracked and maintained by the socialnetworking system. The platform of the social networking system may alsoallow content sharing systems to define custom object types withinparameters specified by the social networking system. For example, thecontent sharing system may utilize pre-defined and custom object typesto enable users to post comments associated with a video that arepublished to relevant audiences of both the content sharing system andthe social networking system. In an embodiment, upon receiving areference to a version of a video provided by a third party contentsharing system that does not utilize the platform, the social networkingsystem may substitute a link to an alternate version of the videoprovided by the social networking system or provided by a third partycontent sharing system that does utilize the platform of the socialnetworking system. Further, the social networking system may present alink to an alternate version of the video when the associated thirdparty content sharing system utilizes certain pre-defined or customobject types of the platform that may be preferred by the socialnetworking system.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude ensuring that videos may be viewed on the various devices usedto access the social networking system. For example, a version of avideo shared by a first user may not be viewable on a user device of asecond user. The user device of the second user may lack the computingcapabilities or technical features necessary to play the version of thevideo shared by the first user. Or, the third party content sharingsystem that provides the version of the video shared by the first usermay lack a video player interface that is compatible with the userdevice of the second user. As another example, the bandwidth of acommunications link may render presentation of the video shared by thefirst user difficult or impossible. In an embodiment, when the seconduser attempts to access the video shared by the first user, the socialnetworking system may substitute an alternate version of the video thatmay be viewed on the user device of the second user.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to maximize the quality of the content displayed tousers of the social networking system. The social networking system mayprefer not to display a video that does not meet certain qualitystandards. A first version of a video shared by a user may be of poor ormediocre quality. For example, the first version of the video may beblurry or contain artifacts that impair the viewing experience. In anembodiment, when the social networking system receives a reference tothe first version of the video, the social networking system analyzesthe quality of the first version of the video. If the quality fallsbelow a quality threshold (e.g., minimum quality threshold), the socialnetworking system may identify a second version of the video whosequality meets or exceeds the quality threshold. The quality thresholdmay be a measure of the number of artifacts in a video, the stability ofthe image in the video, the level of image distortion in the video, thequality of the audio associated with the video, or any other measure ofaudio or video quality. To provide video of acceptable quality to itsusers, the social networking system may substitute a reference to thesecond version of the video for the reference to the first version ofthe video.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to minimize latency in accessing content. The socialnetworking system may receive a reference to a first version of a videoprovided by a third party content sharing system that has high latency.For example, the social networking system may maintain usage statisticson various content sharing systems and may know in advance which contentsharing systems are prone to high latency and which content sharingsystems are likely to provide low latency. The social networking systemmay determine that a content sharing system employs technology thatcauses high response times for users or streams videos relativelyslowly. In an embodiment, when the social networking system receives areference to the first version of the video and determines that thefirst version of the video is provided by a site with high latency, thesocial networking system may identify a second version of the video thatis provided by the social networking system or a third party contentsharing system that has low latency. To minimize latency, the socialnetworking system may substitute a reference to the second version ofthe video for the reference to the first version of the video.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude a desire to conform to preferences specified by a user. Thesocial networking system may receive a reference to a first version of avideo that does not conform to a preference of the user who provided thereference or a user who seeks to view the video. For example, a user whoseeks to view the video may have specified a preference that limits theresolution of videos displayed on his device to 480×640. The user maynot wish to view videos whose resolution exceeds 480×640. If theresolution of the first version of the video exceeds 480×640, then whenthe user seeks to view the video, the social networking system mayidentify a second version of the video whose resolution is 480×640 orless. As another example, a user may specify a preference to view videosfrom certain content sharing systems and not others. As yet anotherexample, the user may specify a preference to view videos only fromcontent sharing systems that do not embed or display advertising withinor adjacent to videos. Accordingly, the social networking system mayidentify and provide versions of the video provided by the preferredcontent sharing systems. To conform to user preferences, the socialnetworking system may substitute a reference to the second version ofthe video for the reference to the first version of the video.

According to an embodiment of the invention, optimization objectives mayinclude ensuring that content in the video may be legally viewed. Forexample, a user may be accessing the video from a region in which acontent provider of the video does not have a license to publish it.Access to the video may be restricted to users in regions where thecontent provider of the shared version of the video has a license to thecontent in the video. In an embodiment, when the user attempts to accessthe video from a region where the content provider does not have alicense to the content in the video, the social networking system maysubstitute an alternate version of the video hosted by a contentprovider that does have a license to the content in the video in theregion of the user. As another example, optimization objectives mayinclude ensuring that a content sharing system that is to provide accessto a video is permitted to publish the video in general, apart fromregional restrictions in particular. In this regard, the socialnetworking system may provide an alternate version of the video hostedby a content sharing system that is legally entitled to publish thevideo.

FIG. 3 illustrates a process 300 for substituting a reference to aversion of a video in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Atblock 301, the social networking system receives a reference to a firstversion of a video from a user. In an embodiment, the reference maycomprise a URL. In an embodiment, the first version of the video mayhave been uploaded to the social networking system by the user. In anembodiment, the first version of the video may have been uploaded to athird party content sharing system. At block 302, the social networkingsystem determines that one or more optimization objectives apply. Theoptimization objectives may include a business objective, a technicalobjective, or a legal objective of the social networking system, asdiscussed herein. In an embodiment, the social networking system maydetermine that the optimization objectives apply in response toreceiving the reference to the video. For example, the social networkingsystem may determine that the first version of the video may be providedby a content sharing system that is not optimal for the users of thesocial networking system or that is not integrated with a platform ofthe social networking system. As another example, the social networkingsystem may determine that the first version of the video provided by thecontent sharing system is of insufficient quality. As yet anotherexample, the social networking system may determine that the contentsharing system associated with the first version of the video has nolegal right to publish the video. In an embodiment, the socialnetworking system may determine that the optimization objectives applyin response to determining the potential viewers of the video. Forexample, the social networking system may determine that a potentialviewer of the video may have expressed a desire to see videos from apreferred content sharing system other than the content sharing systemassociated with the first version of the video. As another example, thesocial networking system may determine that the location of a potentialviewer of the video is not consistent with a right of the contentsharing system to provide the video in limited geographic regions. Atblock 303, the social networking system identifies a second version ofthe video based on the optimization objectives. The second version maybe provided by the social networking system or a third party contentsharing system. At block 304, the social networking system substitutes areference to the second version of the video for the reference to thefirst version of the video. At block 305, the social networking systemprovides the reference to the second version of the video to potentialviewers of the video. In an embodiment, the process 300 may be performedin whole or in part by the video substitution module 200 or any othermodule of the social networking system.

FIG. 4 illustrates a process 400 for selecting a video and embedding alink to the video in a page provided to a user of the social networkingsystem in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. In theillustrated embodiment, the social networking system may receive a videouploaded to the social networking system by a user and a reference(e.g., a link) to a video hosted by a third party content sharingsystem. The social networking system may determine that the two videosinclude sufficiently similar content and determine that one should besubstituted for the other based on one or more optimization objectives.At block 401, the social networking system receives a first video. Thefirst video may be uploaded to the social networking system by a user.At block 402, the social networking system extracts metadata from thefirst video. The metadata may include a title, a description, thumbnailimages, a runtime length, still frames, or any other type of informationpertaining to the first video. At block 403, the social networkingsystem receives a link to a second video hosted by a third party contentsharing system. At block 404, the social networking system receivesmetadata associated with the second video from the third party contentsharing system. The social networking system may receive the metadata byscraping the resource indicated by the link. As discussed above, themetadata may include a title, a description, thumbnail images, a runtimelength, still frames, or any other type of information pertaining to thesecond video.

At block 405, the social networking system determines, based on themetadata associated with the first video and the metadata associatedwith the second video, that the first video and the second video includesufficiently similar content. In an embodiment, the social networkingsystem may determine that the first video and the second video includesufficiently similar content based on techniques for detectingsimilarities in multimedia content using the metadata associated withthe first video and the metadata associated with the second video. Asdiscussed above, the techniques may include comparison of DCT values,thumbnail images, runtime lengths, or any other information in the firstvideo and the second video, or their metadata. Any suitable videodetection technique may be used to determine the similarity of videos.At block 406, the social networking system determines at least oneoptimization objective. The optimization objective may be a businessobjective, a technical objective, a legal objective, or other criteriasuch as the source (content sharing system), user experience, monetaryvalue, video quality, player features, or other considerations, asdiscussed above. At block 407, the social networking system selects avideo from among the first video and the second video based on theoptimization objective. At block 408, the social networking systemembeds a link to the selected video and metadata associated with theselected video in a page. The page may be a profile page, a news feed, awall, a timeline, or any type of page to be provided to a user of thesocial networking system. In an embodiment, the process 400 may beperformed in whole or in part by the video substitution module 200 orany other module of the social networking system.

The social networking system may not wish for a user who shares a videoor a user who may view the video to know that an alternate version ofthe video has been substituted for the version of the video that wasoriginally shared. If the video is displayed with an indication of acontent provider that differs from the content provider of the versionof the video that was shared, the user who shared the video may becomeaware that a substitution has occurred. According to an embodiment ofthe invention, the social networking system may display the video in amanner that omits any indication of the content provider of the video.In an embodiment, the social networking system may present the video ina playback interface that does not include any links, labels, logos, orother indications that may attribute the video to a particular contentprovider.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process 500 for displaying a version of a videowithout attribution in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.Initially, the social networking system may determine, based on one ormore optimization objectives, that a reference to a second version of avideo should be substituted for a reference to a first version of thevideo. At block 501, the social networking system substitutes thereference to the second version of the video for the reference to thefirst version of the video. At block 502, the social networking systemdetermines whether attribution should be presented with the secondversion of the video. Attribution may comprise a link, a logo, a label,or any indication identifying a content provider of the video. Ifattribution should be presented, then at block 503, the socialnetworking system provides the reference to the second version of thevideo with attribution. If attribution should not be presented, then atblock 504, the social networking system provides the reference to thesecond version of the video without attribution. In an embodiment, theprocess 500 may be performed in whole or in part by the videosubstitution module 200 or any other module of the social networkingsystem.

FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate previews 612 and 618 of a video with andwithout attribution, respectively, within an interface 604 of the socialnetworking system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Thepreviews 612 and 618 of FIGS. 6A and 6B may be generated upon a user(e.g., “Brady Carr”) sharing the URL 208,http://videocompany.com/watch?p=x10dvwQ, in FIG. 2C. In FIG. 6A, thepreview 612 includes a thumbnail image 613 of the video, a shortdescription 614, a video length indicator 615, and a video linkindicator 616, displayed alongside message text 609. The URL in thevideo link indicator 616, http://contentstore.com/watch?p=y25aibZ, isdifferent from the URL 208, indicating to the user that the socialnetworking system has substituted the shared version of the video for analternate version of the video. In FIG. 6B, the preview 618 includes thethumbnail image 613 of the video, a short description 619, and a videolength indicator 620, alongside message text 617. A video link indicatoris absent from the preview 618, indicating that the social networkingsystem has determined that attribution should not be presented with thevideo.

Social Networking System—Example Implementation

FIG. 7 is a network diagram of a system 700 for substituting video linkswithin a social network in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. The system 700 includes one or more user devices 710, one ormore external systems 720, a social networking system 730, and a network750. In an embodiment, the social networking system discussed inconnection with the embodiments described above may be implemented asthe social networking system 730. For purposes of illustration, theembodiment of the system 700, shown by FIG. 7, includes a singleexternal system 720 and a single user device 710. However, in otherembodiments, the system 700 may include more user devices 710 and/ormore external systems 720. In certain embodiments, the social networkingsystem 730 is operated by a social network provider, whereas theexternal systems 720 are separate from the social networking system 730in that they may be operated by different entities. In variousembodiments, however, the social networking system 730 and the externalsystems 720 operate in conjunction to provide social networking servicesto users (or members) of the social networking system 730. In thissense, the social networking system 730 provides a platform or backbone,which other systems, such as external systems 720, may use to providesocial networking services and functionalities to users across theInternet.

The user device 710 comprises one or more computing devices that canreceive input from a user and transmit and receive data via the network750. In one embodiment, the user device 710 is a conventional computersystem executing, for example, a Microsoft Windows compatible operatingsystem (OS), Apple OS X, and/or a Linux distribution. In anotherembodiment, the user device 710 can be a device having computerfunctionality, such as a smart-phone, a tablet, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, etc. The user device 710 isconfigured to communicate via the network 750. The user device 710 canexecute an application, for example, a browser application that allows auser of the user device 710 to interact with the social networkingsystem 730. In another embodiment, the user device 710 interacts withthe social networking system 730 through an application programminginterface (API) provided by the native operating system of the userdevice 710, such as iOS and ANDROID. The user device 710 is configuredto communicate with the external system 720 and the social networkingsystem 730 via the network 750, which may comprise any combination oflocal area and/or wide area networks, using wired and/or wirelesscommunication systems.

In one embodiment, the network 750 uses standard communicationstechnologies and protocols. Thus, the network 750 can include linksusing technologies such as Ethernet, 702.11, worldwide interoperabilityfor microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, 4G, CDMA, GSM, LTE, digital subscriberline (DSL), etc. Similarly, the networking protocols used on the network750 can include multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), transmissioncontrol protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), User Datagram Protocol(UDP), hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), simple mail transferprotocol (SMTP), file transfer protocol (FTP), and the like. The dataexchanged over the network 750 can be represented using technologiesand/or formats including hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensiblemarkup language (XML). In addition, all or some links can be encryptedusing conventional encryption technologies such as secure sockets layer(SSL), transport layer security (TLS), and Internet Protocol security(IPsec).

In one embodiment, the user device 710 may display content from theexternal system 720 and/or from the social networking system 730 byprocessing a markup language document 714 received from the externalsystem 720 and from the social networking system 730 using a browserapplication 712. The markup language document 714 identifies content andone or more instructions describing formatting or presentation of thecontent. By executing the instructions included in the markup languagedocument 714, the browser application 712 displays the identifiedcontent using the format or presentation described by the markuplanguage document 714. For example, the markup language document 714includes instructions for generating and displaying a web page havingmultiple frames that include text and/or image data retrieved from theexternal system 720 and the social networking system 730. In variousembodiments, the markup language document 714 comprises a data fileincluding extensible markup language (XML) data, extensible hypertextmarkup language (XHTML) data, or other markup language data.Additionally, the markup language document 714 may include JavaScriptObject Notation (JSON) data, JSON with padding (JSONP), and JavaScriptdata to facilitate data-interchange between the external system 720 andthe user device 710. The browser application 712 on the user device 710may use a JavaScript compiler to decode the markup language document714.

The markup language document 714 may also include, or link to,applications or application frameworks such as FLASH™ or Unity™applications, the SilverLight™ application framework, etc.

In one embodiment, the user device 710 also includes one or more cookies716 including data indicating whether a user of the user device 710 islogged into the social networking system 730, which may enablemodification of the data communicated from the social networking system730 to the user device 710.

The external system 720 includes one or more web servers that includeone or more web pages 722 a, 722 b, which are communicated to the userdevice 710 using the network 750. The external system 720 is separatefrom the social networking system 730. For example, the external system720 is associated with a first domain, while the social networkingsystem 730 is associated with a separate social networking domain. Webpages 722 a, 722 b, included in the external system 720, comprise markuplanguage documents 714 identifying content and including instructionsspecifying formatting or presentation of the identified content.

The social networking system 730 includes one or more computing devicesfor a social network, including a plurality of users, and providingusers of the social network with the ability to communicate and interactwith other users of the social network. In some instances, the socialnetwork can be represented by a graph, i.e., a data structure includingedges and nodes. Other data structures can also be used to represent thesocial network, including but not limited to databases, objects,classes, meta elements, files, or any other data structure. The socialnetworking system 730 may be administered, managed, or controlled by anoperator. The operator of the social networking system 730 may be ahuman being, an automated application, or a series of applications formanaging content, regulating policies, and collecting usage metricswithin the social networking system 730. Any type of operator may beused.

Users may join the social networking system 730 and then add connectionsto any number of other users of the social networking system 730 to whomthey desire to be connected. As used herein, the term “friend” refers toany other user of the social networking system 730 to whom a user hasformed a connection, association, or relationship via the socialnetworking system 730. For example, in an embodiment, if users in thesocial networking system 730 are represented as nodes in the socialgraph, the term “friend” can refer to an edge formed between anddirectly connecting two user nodes.

Connections may be added explicitly by a user or may be automaticallycreated by the social networking system 730 based on commoncharacteristics of the users (e.g., users who are alumni of the sameeducational institution). For example, a first user specifically selectsa particular other user to be a friend. Connections in the socialnetworking system 730 are usually in both directions, but need not be,so the terms “user” and “friend” depend on the frame of reference.Connections between users of the social networking system 730 areusually bilateral (“two-way”), or “mutual,” but connections may also beunilateral, or “one-way.” For example, if Bob and Joe are both users ofthe social networking system 730 and connected to each other, Bob andJoe are each other's connections. If, on the other hand, Bob wishes toconnect to Joe to view data communicated to the social networking system730 by Joe, but Joe does not wish to form a mutual connection, aunilateral connection may be established. The connection between usersmay be a direct connection; however, some embodiments of the socialnetworking system 730 allow the connection to be indirect via one ormore levels of connections or degrees of separation.

In addition to establishing and maintaining connections between usersand allowing interactions between users, the social networking system730 provides users with the ability to take actions on various types ofitems supported by the social networking system 730. These items mayinclude groups or networks (i.e., social networks of people, entities,and concepts) to which users of the social networking system 730 maybelong, events or calendar entries in which a user might be interested,computer-based applications that a user may use via the socialnetworking system 730, transactions that allow users to buy or sellitems via services provided by or through the social networking system730, and interactions with advertisements that a user may perform on oroff the social networking system 730. These are just a few examples ofthe items upon which a user may act on the social networking system 730,and many others are possible. A user may interact with anything that iscapable of being represented in the social networking system 730 or inthe external system 720, separate from the social networking system 730,or coupled to the social networking system 730 via the network 750.

The social networking system 730 is also capable of linking a variety ofentities. For example, the social networking system 730 enables users tointeract with each other as well as external systems 720 or otherentities through an API, a web service, or other communication channels.The social networking system 730 generates and maintains the “socialgraph” comprising a plurality of nodes interconnected by a plurality ofedges. Each node in the social graph may represent an entity that canact on another node and/or that can be acted on by another node. Thesocial graph may include various types of nodes. Examples of types ofnodes include users, non-person entities, content items, web pages,groups, activities, messages, concepts, and any other things that can berepresented by an object in the social networking system 730. An edgebetween two nodes in the social graph may represent a particular kind ofconnection, or association, between the two nodes, which may result fromnode relationships or from an action that was performed by one of thenodes on the other node. In some cases, the edges between nodes can beweighted. The weight of an edge can represent an attribute associatedwith the edge, such as a strength of the connection or associationbetween nodes. Different types of edges can be provided with differentweights. For example, an edge created when one user “likes” another usermay be given one weight, while an edge created when a user befriendsanother user may be given a different weight.

As an example, when a first user identifies a second user as a friend,an edge in the social graph is generated connecting a node representingthe first user and a second node representing the second user. Asvarious nodes relate or interact with each other, the social networkingsystem 730 modifies edges connecting the various nodes to reflect therelationships and interactions.

The social networking system 730 also includes user-generated content,which enhances a user's interactions with the social networking system730. User-generated content may include anything a user can add, upload,send, or “post” to the social networking system 730. For example, a usercommunicates posts to the social networking system 730 from a userdevice 710. Posts may include data such as status updates or othertextual data, location information, images such as photos, videos,links, music or other similar data and/or media. Content may also beadded to the social networking system 730 by a third party. Content“items” are represented as objects in the social networking system 730.In this way, users of the social networking system 730 are encouraged tocommunicate with each other by posting text and content items of varioustypes of media through various communication channels. Suchcommunication increases the interaction of users with each other andincreases the frequency with which users interact with the socialnetworking system 730.

The social networking system 730 includes a web server 732, an APIrequest server 734, a user profile store 736, a connection store 738, anaction logger 740, an activity log 742, an authorization server 744, anda video substitution module 746. In an embodiment of the invention, thesocial networking system 730 may include additional, fewer, or differentcomponents for various applications. Other components, such as networkinterfaces, security mechanisms, load balancers, failover servers,management and network operations consoles, and the like are not shownso as to not obscure the details of the system.

The user profile store 736 maintains information about user accounts,including biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, such as work experience, educational history, hobbies orpreferences, location, and the like that has been declared by users orinferred by the social networking system 730. This information is storedin the user profile store 736 such that each user is uniquelyidentified. The social networking system 730 also stores data describingone or more connections between different users in the connection store738. The connection information may indicate users who have similar orcommon work experience, group memberships, hobbies, or educationalhistory. Additionally, the social networking system 730 includesuser-defined connections between different users, allowing users tospecify their relationships with other users. For example, user-definedconnections allow users to generate relationships with other users thatparallel the users' real-life relationships, such as friends,co-workers, partners, and so forth. Users may select from predefinedtypes of connections, or define their own connection types as needed.Connections with other nodes in the social networking system 730, suchas non-person entities, buckets, cluster centers, images, interests,pages, external systems, concepts, and the like are also stored in theconnection store 738.

The social networking system 730 maintains data about objects with whicha user may interact. To maintain this data, the user profile store 736and the connection store 738 store instances of the corresponding typeof objects maintained by the social networking system 730. Each objecttype has information fields that are suitable for storing informationappropriate to the type of object. For example, the user profile store736 contains data structures with fields suitable for describing auser's account and information related to a user's account. When a newobject of a particular type is created, the social networking system 730initializes a new data structure of the corresponding type, assigns aunique object identifier to it, and begins to add data to the object asneeded. This might occur, for example, when a user becomes a user of thesocial networking system 730, the social networking system 730 generatesa new instance of a user profile in the user profile store 736, assignsa unique identifier to the user account, and begins to populate thefields of the user account with information provided by the user.

The connection store 738 includes data structures suitable fordescribing a user's connections to other users, connections to externalsystems 720 or connections to other entities. The connection store 738may also associate a connection type with a user's connections, whichmay be used in conjunction with the user's privacy setting to regulateaccess to information about the user. In an embodiment of the invention,the user profile store 736 and the connection store 738 may beimplemented as a federated database.

Data stored in the connection store 738, the user profile store 736, andthe activity log 742 enables the social networking system 730 togenerate the social graph that uses nodes to identify various objectsand edges connecting nodes to identify relationships between differentobjects. For example, if a first user establishes a connection with asecond user in the social networking system 730, user accounts of thefirst user and the second user from the user profile store 736 may actas nodes in the social graph. The connection between the first user andthe second user stored by the connection store 738 is an edge betweenthe nodes associated with the first user and the second user. Continuingthis example, the second user may then send the first user a messagewithin the social networking system 730. The action of sending themessage, which may be stored, is another edge between the two nodes inthe social graph representing the first user and the second user.Additionally, the message itself may be identified and included in thesocial graph as another node connected to the nodes representing thefirst user and the second user.

In another example, a first user may tag a second user in an image thatis maintained by the social networking system 730 (or, alternatively, inan image maintained by another system outside of the social networkingsystem 730). The image may itself be represented as a node in the socialnetworking system 730. This tagging action may create edges between thefirst user and the second user as well as create an edge between each ofthe users and the image, which is also a node in the social graph. Inyet another example, if a user confirms attending an event, the user andthe event are nodes obtained from the user profile store 736, where theattendance of the event is an edge between the nodes that may beretrieved from the activity log 742. By generating and maintaining thesocial graph, the social networking system 730 includes data describingmany different types of objects and the interactions and connectionsamong those objects, providing a rich source of socially relevantinformation.

The web server 732 links the social networking system 730 to one or moreuser devices 710 and/or one or more external systems 720 via the network750. The web server 732 serves web pages, as well as other web-relatedcontent, such as Java, JavaScript, Flash, XML, and so forth. The webserver 732 may include a mail server or other messaging functionalityfor receiving and routing messages between the social networking system730 and one or more user devices 710. The messages can be instantmessages, queued messages (e.g., email), text and SMS messages, or anyother suitable messaging format.

The API request server 734 allows one or more external systems 720 anduser devices 710 to call access information from the social networkingsystem 730 by calling one or more API functions. The API request server734 may also allow external systems 720 to send information to thesocial networking system 730 by calling APIs. The external system 720,in one embodiment, sends an API request to the social networking system730 via the network 750, and the API request server 734 receives the APIrequest. The API request server 734 processes the request by calling anAPI associated with the API request to generate an appropriate response,which the API request server 734 communicates to the external system 720via the network 750. For example, responsive to an API request, the APIrequest server 734 collects data associated with a user, such as theuser's connections that have logged into the external system 720, andcommunicates the collected data to the external system 720. In anotherembodiment, the user device 710 communicates with the social networkingsystem 730 via APIs in the same manner as external systems 720.

The action logger 740 is capable of receiving communications from theweb server 732 about user actions on and/or off the social networkingsystem 730. The action logger 740 populates the activity log 742 withinformation about user actions, enabling the social networking system730 to discover various actions taken by its users within the socialnetworking system 730 and outside of the social networking system 730.Any action that a particular user takes with respect to another node onthe social networking system 730 may be associated with each user'saccount, through information maintained in the activity log 742 or in asimilar database or other data repository. Examples of actions taken bya user within the social networking system 730 that are identified andstored may include, for example, adding a connection to another user,sending a message to another user, reading a message from another user,viewing content associated with another user, attending an event postedby another user, posting an image, attempting to post an image, or otheractions interacting with another user or another object. When a usertakes an action within the social networking system 730, the action isrecorded in the activity log 742. In one embodiment, the socialnetworking system 730 maintains the activity log 742 as a database ofentries. When an action is taken within the social networking system730, an entry for the action is added to the activity log 742. Theactivity log 742 may be referred to as an action log.

Additionally, user actions may be associated with concepts and actionsthat occur within an entity outside of the social networking system 730,such as an external system 720 that is separate from the socialnetworking system 730. For example, the action logger 740 may receivedata describing a user's interaction with an external system 720 fromthe web server 732. In this example, the external system 720 reports auser's interaction according to structured actions and objects in thesocial graph.

Other examples of actions where a user interacts with an external system720 include a user expressing an interest in an external system 720 oranother entity, a user posting a comment to the social networking system730 that discusses an external system 720 or a web page 722 a within theexternal system 720, a user posting to the social networking system 730a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or other identifier associated with anexternal system 720, a user attending an event associated with anexternal system 720, or any other action by a user that is related to anexternal system 720. Thus, the activity log 742 may include actionsdescribing interactions between a user of the social networking system730 and an external system 720 that is separate from the socialnetworking system 730.

The authorization server 744 enforces one or more privacy settings ofthe users of the social networking system 730. A privacy setting of auser determines how particular information associated with a user can beshared. The privacy setting comprises the specification of particularinformation associated with a user and the specification of the entityor entities with whom the information can be shared. Examples ofentities with which information can be shared may include other users,applications, external systems 720, or any entity that can potentiallyaccess the information. The information that can be shared by a usercomprises user account information, such as profile photos, phonenumbers associated with the user, user's connections, actions taken bythe user such as adding a connection, changing user profile information,and the like.

The privacy setting specification may be provided at different levels ofgranularity. For example, the privacy setting may identify specificinformation to be shared with other users; the privacy settingidentifies a work phone number or a specific set of related information,such as, personal information including profile photo, home phonenumber, and status. Alternatively, the privacy setting may apply to allthe information associated with the user. The specification of the setof entities that can access particular information can also be specifiedat various levels of granularity. Various sets of entities with whichinformation can be shared may include, for example, all friends of theuser, all friends of friends, all applications, or all external systems720. One embodiment allows the specification of the set of entities tocomprise an enumeration of entities. For example, the user may provide alist of external systems 720 that are allowed to access certaininformation. Another embodiment allows the specification to comprise aset of entities along with exceptions that are not allowed to access theinformation. For example, a user may allow all external systems 720 toaccess the user's work information, but specify a list of externalsystems 720 that are not allowed to access the work information. Certainembodiments call the list of exceptions that are not allowed to accesscertain information a “block list”. External systems 720 belonging to ablock list specified by a user are blocked from accessing theinformation specified in the privacy setting. Various combinations ofgranularity of specification of information, and granularity ofspecification of entities, with which information is shared arepossible. For example, all personal information may be shared withfriends whereas all work information may be shared with friends offriends.

The authorization server 744 contains logic to determine if certaininformation associated with a user can be accessed by a user's friends,external systems 720, and/or other applications and entities. Theexternal system 720 may need authorization from the authorization server744 to access the user's more private and sensitive information, such asthe user's work phone number. Based on the user's privacy settings, theauthorization server 744 determines if another user, the external system720, an application, or another entity is allowed to access informationassociated with the user, including information about actions taken bythe user.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the social networkingsystem 730 may include the video substitution module 746. The videosubstitution module 746 may control the sharing of videos or othercontent within the social networking system 730. The video substitutionmodule 746 may receive a reference to a version of a video provided by auser of the social networking system 730 and substitute for thereference another reference to an alternate version of the video. Thesubstitution may be based on the application of optimization objectivesof the social networking system 730 in accordance with embodimentsdescribed herein. In an embodiment, the video substitution module 746may be implemented as the video substitution module 200 of FIG. 2.

Hardware Implementation

The foregoing processes and features can be implemented by a widevariety of machine and computer system architectures and in a widevariety of network and computing environments. FIG. 8 illustrates anexample of a computer system 800 that may be used to implement one ormore of the embodiments described herein in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. The computer system 800 includes sets ofinstructions for causing the computer system 800 to perform theprocesses and features discussed herein. The computer system 800 may beconnected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networkeddeployment, the computer system 800 may operate in the capacity of aserver machine or a client machine in a client-server networkenvironment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (or distributed)network environment. In an embodiment of the invention, the computersystem 800 may be the social networking system 730, the user device 710,and the external system 720, or a component thereof. In an embodiment ofthe invention, the computer system 800 may be one server among many thatconstitutes all or part of the social networking system 730.

The computer system 800 includes a processor 802, a cache 804, and oneor more executable modules and drivers, stored on a computer-readablemedium, directed to the processes and features described herein.Additionally, the computer system 800 includes a high performanceinput/output (I/O) bus 806 and a standard I/O bus 808. A host bridge 810couples processor 802 to high performance I/O bus 806, whereas I/O busbridge 812 couples the two buses 806 and 808 to each other. A systemmemory 814 and one or more network interfaces 816 couple to highperformance I/O bus 806. The computer system 800 may further includevideo memory and a display device coupled to the video memory (notshown). Mass storage 818 and I/O ports 820 couple to the standard I/Obus 808. The computer system 800 may optionally include a keyboard andpointing device, a display device, or other input/output devices (notshown) coupled to the standard I/O bus 808. Collectively, these elementsare intended to represent a broad category of computer hardware systems,including but not limited to computer systems based on thex86-compatible processors manufactured by Intel Corporation of SantaClara, Calif., and the x86-compatible processors manufactured byAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., as well as anyother suitable processor.

An operating system manages and controls the operation of the computersystem 800, including the input and output of data to and from softwareapplications (not shown). The operating system provides an interfacebetween the software applications being executed on the system and thehardware components of the system. Any suitable operating system may beused, such as the LINUX Operating System, the Apple Macintosh OperatingSystem, available from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., UNIXoperating systems, Microsoft® Windows® operating systems, BSD operatingsystems, and the like. Other implementations are possible.

The elements of the computer system 800 are described in greater detailbelow. In particular, the network interface 816 provides communicationbetween the computer system 800 and any of a wide range of networks,such as an Ethernet (e.g., IEEE 802.3) network, a backplane, etc. Themass storage 818 provides permanent storage for the data and programminginstructions to perform the above-described processes and featuresimplemented by the respective computing systems identified above,whereas the system memory 814 (e.g., DRAM) provides temporary storagefor the data and programming instructions when executed by the processor802. The I/O ports 820 may be one or more serial and/or parallelcommunication ports that provide communication between additionalperipheral devices, which may be coupled to the computer system 800.

The computer system 800 may include a variety of system architectures,and various components of the computer system 800 may be rearranged. Forexample, the cache 804 may be on-chip with processor 802. Alternatively,the cache 804 and the processor 802 may be packed together as a“processor module”, with processor 802 being referred to as the“processor core”. Furthermore, certain embodiments of the invention mayneither require nor include all of the above components. For example,peripheral devices coupled to the standard I/O bus 808 may couple to thehigh performance I/O bus 806. In addition, in some embodiments, only asingle bus may exist, with the components of the computer system 800being coupled to the single bus. Furthermore, the computer system 800may include additional components, such as additional processors,storage devices, or memories.

In general, the processes and features described herein may beimplemented as part of an operating system or a specific application,component, program, object, module, or series of instructions referredto as “programs”. For example, one or more programs may be used toexecute specific processes described herein. The programs typicallycomprise one or more instructions in various memory and storage devicesin the computer system 800 that, when read and executed by one or moreprocessors, cause the computer system 800 to perform operations toexecute the processes and features described herein. The processes andfeatures described herein may be implemented in software, firmware,hardware (e.g., an application specific integrated circuit), or anycombination thereof.

In one implementation, the processes and features described herein areimplemented as a series of executable modules run by the computer system800, individually or collectively in a distributed computingenvironment. The foregoing modules may be realized by hardware,executable modules stored on a computer-readable medium (ormachine-readable medium), or a combination of both. For example, themodules may comprise a plurality or series of instructions to beexecuted by a processor in a hardware system, such as the processor 802.Initially, the series of instructions may be stored on a storage device,such as the mass storage 818. However, the series of instructions can bestored on any suitable computer readable storage medium. Furthermore,the series of instructions need not be stored locally, and could bereceived from a remote storage device, such as a server on a network,via the network interface 816. The instructions are copied from thestorage device, such as the mass storage 818, into the system memory 814and then accessed and executed by the processor 802.

Examples of computer-readable media include, but are not limited to,recordable type media such as volatile and non-volatile memory devices;solid state memories; floppy and other removable disks; hard diskdrives; magnetic media; optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-OnlyMemory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs)); other similarnon-transitory (or transitory), tangible (or non-tangible) storagemedium; or any type of medium suitable for storing, encoding, orcarrying a series of instructions for execution by the computer system800 to perform any one or more of the processes and features describedherein.

For purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the description. It will beapparent, however, to one skilled in the art that embodiments of thedisclosure can be practiced without these specific details. In someinstances, modules, structures, processes, features, and devices areshown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the description.In other instances, functional block diagrams and flow diagrams areshown to represent data and logic flows. The components of blockdiagrams and flow diagrams (e.g., modules, blocks, structures, devices,features, etc.) may be variously combined, separated, removed,reordered, and replaced in a manner other than as expressly describedand depicted herein.

Reference in this specification to “one embodiment”, “an embodiment”,“other embodiments”, “one series of embodiments”, or the like means thata particular feature, design, structure, or characteristic described inconnection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment ofthe disclosure. The appearances of, for example, the phrase “in oneembodiment” or “in an embodiment” in various places in the specificationare not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor areseparate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of otherembodiments. Moreover, whether or not there is express reference to an“embodiment” or the like, various features are described, which may bevariously combined and included in some embodiments, but also variouslyomitted in other embodiments. Similarly, various features are describedthat may be preferences or requirements for some embodiments, but notother embodiments.

The language used herein has been principally selected for readabilityand instructional purposes, and it may not have been selected todelineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. It is thereforeintended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detaileddescription, but rather by any claims that issue on an application basedhereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodiments of the inventionis intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of theinvention, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed:
 1. A computer implemented method comprising: receiving,by a social networking system, a request from a user of the socialnetworking system to share content with other users connected to theuser in the social networking system, the request received from the userbeing a request to provide a post in the social networking system thatincludes a first version of the content; receiving, by the socialnetworking system from the user, a first reference to the first versionof the content requested to be shared; selecting, by the socialnetworking system, a second version of the content from a plurality ofalternate versions based on at least one optimization objective of thesocial networking system, the at least one optimization objectiveincluding a desire to optimize content shared by the user to meet aparticular objective of the social networking system, the second versionof the content being a different version of the same content as thefirst version of the content; creating, by the social networking system,a second reference to the second version of the content for the socialnetworking system to substitute with the first reference; and providingfor display, by the social networking system, the post from the user forsharing with the other users connected to the user, the post comprisingthe second reference to the second version of the content instead of thefirst reference to the first version of the content; wherein the post isprovided for display with the second reference substituted for the firstreference without the user or the other users being made aware that thesubstitution by the social networking system occurred.
 2. The computerimplemented method of claim 1, wherein the content includes at least oneof video and audio.
 3. The computer implemented method of claim 1,wherein the at least one optimization objective includes at least one ofa business objective, a technical objective, and a legal objective. 4.The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprisingdetermining capabilities of a computing device of the user to access atleast one of the first version of the content and the second version ofthe content.
 5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein theselecting is based on the determining capabilities of the computingdevice.
 6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising: determining a location of the user; and determining that theuser has no rights to access the first version of the content in thelocation.
 7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the atleast one optimization objective includes a quality threshold.
 8. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first version of thecontent is provided by a first content sharing system.
 9. The computerimplemented method of claim 8, wherein the first content sharing systemis not integrated with a platform of the social networking system. 10.The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein the second versionof the content is provided by the social networking system.
 11. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 9, wherein the second version ofthe content is provided by a second content sharing system separate fromthe first content sharing system.
 12. The computer implemented method ofclaim 11, wherein the second content sharing system is integrated with aplatform of the social networking system.
 13. The computer implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising associating metadata with thesecond version of the content for presentation to the user.
 14. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one of thefirst reference and the second reference includes a URL.
 15. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising determiningwhether to provide attribution for the second version of the content forpresentation to the user.
 16. The computer implemented method of claim1, further comprising determining that the second version of the contentsatisfies a similarity threshold with the first version of the content.17. A system comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storinginstructions configured to instruct the at least one processor toperform: receiving a request from a user of a social networking systemto share content with other users connected to the user in the socialnetworking system, the request received from the user being a request toprovide a post in the social networking system that includes a firstversion of the content; receiving a first reference to the first versionof the content requested to be shared; selecting a second version of thecontent from a plurality of alternate versions based on at least oneoptimization objective of the social networking system, the at least oneoptimization objective including a desire to optimize content shared bythe user to meet a particular objective of the social networking system,the second version of the content being a different version of the samecontent as the first version of the content; creating a second referenceto the second version of the content for the social networking system tosubstitute with the first reference; and providing for display, by thesocial networking system, the post from the user for sharing with theother users connected to the user, the post comprising the secondreference to the second version of the content instead of the firstreference to the first version of the content; wherein the post isprovided for display with the second reference substituted for the firstreference without the user or the other users being made aware that thesubstitution by the social networking system occurred.
 18. Anon-transitory computer storage medium storing computer-executableinstructions that, when executed, cause a computer system to perform acomputer-implemented method comprising: receiving a request from a userof a social networking system to share content with other usersconnected to the user in the social networking system, the requestreceived from the user being a request to provide a post in the socialnetworking system that includes a first version of the content;receiving a first reference to the first version of the contentrequested to be shared; selecting a second version of the content from aplurality of alternate versions based on at least one optimizationobjective of the social networking system, the at least one optimizationobjective including a desire to optimize content shared by the user tomeet a particular objective of the social networking system, the secondversion of the content being a different version of the same content asthe first version of the content; creating a second reference to thesecond version of the content for the social networking system tosubstitute with the first reference; and providing for display, by thesocial networking system, the post from the user for sharing with theother users connected to the user, the post comprising the secondreference to the second version of the content instead of the firstreference to the first version of the content; wherein the post isprovided for display with the second reference substituted for the firstreference without the user or the other users being made aware that thesubstitution by the social networking system occurred.